


Firelight in Your Eyes

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Category: From Paris with Love (2010)
Genre: And Reece is impatient, Coffee, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Roller Coaster, Falling In Love, Fire, Fluff, Frustration, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Lust, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Romance, Trope Bingo Round 13, Wax is the levelheaded one here, h/c_bingo, rare pairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-22 18:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: In which Reece is ravenous and Wax is wanting to slow things down for once.





	Firelight in Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt [Fire](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/34933.html). 
> 
> Also written for [Trope Bingo](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/37096.html) for the prompt Rare Pairs. 
> 
> _Soundtrack:_ Title and lyrics are from Evans Blue’s ‘Stop and Say You Love Me’

_~But I could never speak the words_

_Because they haven’t wrote the words_

_That mean enough to me_

_So together we can burn this way~_

* * *

Reece had been on edge all morning. It was like something was stirring,  _rippling_ with tenacity underneath his skin, wanting out, wanting its own  _voice,_ and as much as Reece didn't want to give into it there was a part of him that did. A part of him that wanted to say to hell with the consequences and jump first into something for once. 

Only, Wax had gone out on a coffee run a little while ago, an unfortunate effect of Reece preferring lattes over just plain, fine,  _regular_ coffee. Wax was Wax: cheap booze and even cheaper coffee - hell, he’d drink just barely non-toxic sludge - and those stupid energy drinks he liked when he could get his hands on them, and of course Reece had to run on an entirely different spectrum,  _of course_ he had to like his fine wines and his fancy cappuccinos and his coffee - when he had to - with just the right pinch of sugar and just the exact squeeze of cream. Wax would take it straight from their stained, overly used pot like any normal person would, never wanting for espresso or cinnamon or that soft froth at the top, a taste which Reece was cursing himself for now. 

But Wax had gone without any prompting because Reece didn't usually get what he wanted, since they were too busy working a case or getting the hell out the door while Reece was still trying to get dressed or at least wake himself up.

Reece supposed it was all better than the  _very_ early morning wake up calls Wax had graciously gifted him when they both had their separate apartments. Not that Reece missed having his own space, just... Wax wasn't the best house guest in the world, so imagine him as a  _roommate_ , but there were a lot of things about the guy that you just had to accept and roll with. And after Caroline... let's just say that Reece didn't really want to be alone and Wax  _got_ that, he got that without even needing to flesh it out. 

But all of that didn't really matter much right now when all Reece wanted was Wax here, with coffee or without, just  _here_ . 

Because Reece, for some reason, was going crazy.

It also hadn’t helped that he’d practically shoved Wax out the door once he offered. Reece could have gone with him, could have told him to wait a few extra minutes, could have convinced Wax to just make the same old crappy coffee they made everyday in their coffeepot which was several uses away from falling apart. But no, being on edge, Reece hadn’t exactly trusted himself not to do something he regretted. He didn’t even know what that something would be: maybe arguing, maybe saying something he hadn’t intended that would land him in a whirlwind of questions, maybe even throwing himself on Wax and forcing Wax to take him, right then and there, right on the floor.

God, how  _embarrassing._ And he couldn’t even  _say_ it. 

Lately, since he and Wax became  _official_ , or at least official between the two of them, Reece had been thinking about it more and more. Wax hadn’t exactly been  _eager_ about that fundamental aspect of their relationship, claiming that he didn’t want to rush it, didn’t want to ruin it, didn’t want Reece to get the wrong idea that he was just some quick lay to sate Wax when they weren’t working, when he couldn’t pick up some chick right outside the door. Reece didn’t care because he  _wanted_ Wax, wanted him more than caffeine and more than not wanting to get shot at for  _once_ and more than caring about keeping up with Wax or pleasing him. 

He wanted Wax’s hands on him, strong and firm and  _sure_ like the way he held his gun or his coffee mug or the wheel. He wanted Wax’s mouth everywhere it could go, hot and raging and whispering dirty, perverse nothings into his ear, trying,  _succeeding_ in making Reece harder than he already was. 

He wanted to stop thinking about Caroline all the time, wanted to know that he could have some fragment again of what he had had with her, because he wasn’t delusional enough to imagine that he could have with someone else  _everything_ that he’d had with her. 

Reece really liked Wax though, maybe even loved, he didn’t know.

Did he  _have_ to know right now? Couldn’t he just  _have_ Wax, exactly like he always was? Couldn’t he just jump in without looking and without thinking and just wanting to  _feel something?_

So the itch under his skin increased, the fire in his belly spread until it raged inside him like a maelstrom, that intense craving just to be needed lingered behind all that lust but was still there, needing Wax to want him, needing Wax to just  _act_ already. 

And then he heard a key turn in the lock and the door swung open and Reece’s fingernails dug into the dilapidated armrest of the couch - because Wax took no pride in his apartment and had probably found most of the furniture by the side of the road - in quivering anxiety, trying to keep himself  _right there_ and not rush at Wax in desire or anger or relief, each one as palpable as the other at this point. 

Wax wasn’t blind, just opting to quickly put the coffees down before addressing Reece’s unusual - to say the least - behavior. Reece tried to dig his fingers out of the couch but then reminded himself not to; he needed some sort of anchor, some sort of reason why he couldn’t  _just_ go over and get his coffee and act like everything was  _just_ normal. 

_Nothing_ was normal anymore. 

Reece had been wanting his partner for months now, not even really realizing it until he thought it was too late, until he made all these stupid cavalier remarks that Wax sleeping around with women from every class - prostitutes and undercover agents and even a former fling - didn’t make any difference to him. It was when Reece was at the end of his tether - and he’d been stupidly ignorant of  _that_ too - that Wax had cornered him and fought with him, even physically with the bruises on Reece’s arms and the scratches on Wax’s chest, and Wax had finally been the one to cave, to admit that he was crazy about Reece and didn’t want to lose him. 

But  _lose_ him? Reece wasn’t going anywhere, had nowhere  _to_ go, but maybe it was better  _not_ to admit that to Wax, to let Wax know that he had a limit that, if crossed, would actually put Wax in his place for once. Still, he and Wax hadn’t slept together; there had been so much pent-up frustration and desperation and even regret that night that Wax had pretty much just fallen asleep on top of him, snores sounding more like they came from a foghorn than a human, Reece’s heart pounding painfully in shame and fury and half a dozen other emotions Reece had no names for. 

He had lay awake all night, Wax’s warmth like a blanket, afraid that come morning his partner would forget about or ignore simply through sheer will the promises they had made the night before.

Wax hadn’t, but he hadn’t exactly  _acted_ on anything either. 

That was six days prior, six long irritating and uncertain days where Reece often wondered if Wax had regretted any of his words or his admissions, had changed his mind, had only told Reece that he cared about him to appease him, to  _make_ him stay. Reece would stay but he wasn’t Wax’s pet, would need to have the truth sooner rather than later. 

How long was Wax planning to wait anyway until they finally made their relationship official?

Apparently, still longer yet as Wax continued to stand at the counter, carefully assessing Reece’s mood as if he were a bomb he needed to defuse, as if he had some chance of figuring out what Reece was capable of and what he was most likely to do when  _Reece_ didn’t even know the answers to either of those questions. Of course, Wax never tended to be careful  _enough_ . “There a fire under your ass or somethin’? Didn’t think you were this fidgety when I left.” 

Oh, he had been, it was only significantly worse now. Reece shifted, digging his fingers out of the couch’s fabric, hand grasping one of the cushions for balance. “I just...,” he shut his mouth, wondering how Wax would take this and how he would use it. “…Missed you is all, I guess.” Something lifted from him, this significant  _weight._

“You guess?” Wax chuckled, appearing impressed. He shrugged out of his signature brown leather jacket and Reece wondered what was next, licking his lips and then biting back his tongue, his fingernails biting crescents in his palms soon after. “Reece, baby, you don’t need an excuse to miss me. You can just miss me for the sake of missing me.”

And of course Reece  _knew_ that, or at least he  _thought_ he had known that. “Okay, then… then I missed you. Okay?”  _Even though he’s only been gone for twenty minutes tops._

“Okay.” As if that was that, as if Reece was allowed to miss Wax and nothing else, to not want anything else, to not want to curl up in Wax’s arms just like that night, without worrying about whether he was good enough for Wax, without worrying about whether  _Wax_ wanted this and not just because he thought Reece needed it and would self-destruct without it. 

He couldn’t  _stand_ the way Wax was looking at him: amused, expectant, even impatient. It made Reece want to leave, want to  _run_ , want to lock himself in the bedroom and sleep the last week away. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing. Just thinkin’ it's about time you got your cute, sentimental ass over here.”

Wax hadn’t even touched his coffee, hadn’t once looked at it since setting it down, like he actually  _could_ function without coffee, like maybe he had even gone out not for the coffee but to drive Reece wild, to drive him mad by just being gone. 

Reece put his foot down. “Don’t tease me, Wax.”

“Not even when you’re so easy to tease?” Reece’s fingers dug into the armrest again and Wax, as if thinking better about pushing Reece  _too_ much, shifted his gaze away and took a long pull from one of the paper cups. He set it back down, face dissolving into sourness. “One way or another, Reece cup, I’m getting you  _off_ these girly drinks.” At that, Reece firmly pulled himself away from the couch and made it to the door, despite that Wax was right there and could stop him if he wanted to and  _did._ “Where do you think you’re going?” Reece usually hated when someone put their hands on him and this was  _no_ different. 

“Out on a walk to clear my head,” Reece demanded before realizing it  _should_ have just been a simple answer. In bitter frustration, he slammed his shoulder against Wax’s and managed to make it past the door-frame, only to have his partner pull him right back inside. “Let go of me,” Reece warned, voice low and not raised but his words deadly enough. 

Wax didn’t even flinch. “If that’s what you want. If you want to keep going around in circles, be my guest. But I might not be here when you get back.”

The first blow and the  _hardest._

And Reece - because who the hell  _else?_ \- was the one who caved, his only tangible recourse to stumble and shudder and crumble inward, hiding his face in his hands and yet trying to make it appear meaningless, fingernails clawing and digging at his forehead, palms resting there as if to create a headache and not ease one, whole body trembling just from the effort of keeping it relatively together. 

This time,  _this time_ Wax wasn’t in his face, only his hands were perched lightly on Reece’s shoulders, light enough to run with any excuse to pull away. A hand moved to hover over his lower back; it was surreal how Reece could feel the heat of it even before it pressed against his clothed skin gently, causing Reece to fall forward into his arms, as a distraught Wax had fallen into Reece’s the time before, a comfort that Wax was offering now as if in payment. Instead of keeping himself contained, Reece was burrowing further against Wax until he was pressed tight back against the wall, Wax trying to prevent Reece from driving him through said wall. 

“Easy, cowboy.” He could feel Wax reaching behind him to close the door, could hear the latch slide across, the rustle as Wax’s hand swiped up and down his back in long, hurried, overly awkward motions.

And Reece was going out of his head again as if something was pulling at his skin, tearing at it, splitting it open. He sunk to his knees without thought, fingers grasping innocently enough at Wax’s belt before Wax grabbed them, Reece’s fingers numb from shock and his heart heavy with rejection.

“Not this way,” Wax stated like it was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

It wasn’t.

Reece surged to his feet again, clutching Wax to regain his balance, kissing him without without hesitation, balling his heart up in his very hands and shoving it into Wax’s mouth as if forcing him to accept that Reece was done waiting, was  _done_ with Wax putting him off like Reece was something he had to do and not someone he claimed he cared about. 

But Wax had never said  _love_ and was this too much, was this all Reece’s mistake and Wax would just laugh this off in the next minute and say something like  _I didn’t mean this way, I don’t swing this way, I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea?_

Wax pulled back but only so much that their mouths were no longer touching. “You don’t have the wrong idea,” he answered as if Reece had just said all that out loud. Had he?

The fire was at its maximum zenith, lighting Reece up until he was sure he would burn right through Wax, until the heat was so searing that there were seconds interspersed between Wax’s words where Reece couldn’t even see, could only  _feel,_ could only feel how Wax didn’t want to hold onto him too tight. He was shaking so tremendously from the imminent rejection that Wax started holding him tighter, trying to keep him down on the ground, trying to douse him as if Reece were mere seconds away from exploding and crumbling into ash. 

There was so much anger that he wanted, no,  _needed_ to scream, so much uncertainty that he just wanted to crawl right out of his own skin, leave it behind and not worry about anything, not about this job and not about Wax and not about whether this was where he was supposed to be. 

He looked at Wax,  _really_ looked, and saw his own fire reflected in those eyes, eyes that were so open and inviting and patient now as if the entire world was standing still just for them, as if there was no assignment waiting for them, no simpler problem Wax wanted to deal with that he could merely shoot his way out of like it was all nothing at all. Boiling with heat, writhing in sweat, so  _ravenous_ it was like he couldn’t even exist without it, couldn’t take no for an answer, Reece shut his eyes and allowed Wax’s presence to eclipse him, to tamper down his blinding light and his oppressive heat and convince him that no one was leaving. 

“Not everything’s a race, Reece,” Wax said, almost as if it was in Reece’s own head as he came down, calmed down, saw Wax without heat-searing ripples obscuring the details of him, details he had gotten so used to and dependent upon like the earring in his left ear, a simple stainless steel hoop that paired with the set of rings on his left hand; like the pale brown scarf hiding tanned skin; the chain around his neck holding charms Reece had never asked the meaning of. “When we get to the end of this, you’ll see that it was all worth the wait,” he finished.

Wax grabbed his hand then and tugged, pulling Reece into their small bedroom, pulling Reece down on the unmade bed, pulling at Reece’s heart.

Reece breathed out, fire nearly evaporating if not for the fact that Wax was pulling himself down on top of him, that burning heat and raw power now in Wax’s own eyes, consuming them both from the inside out.

Reece had wondered how long it would take.

Still, before Wax engaged in his slow seduction or whatever the hell he ended up calling it later, when they were sated and spent and hanging off of each other panting dramatically like they hadn’t taken in a decent breath in twenty minutes, he made sure Reece was aware of one other very important thing. “Reece?”

_Hurry up, already,_ Reece seethed, already stripped bare and hanging on the edge of a fear that Wax would leave him like this. “Yeah?” He breathed, high-pitched, desperate, too much like a whine. 

“You know I miss you too, right? Not necessarily when I’m just going out to get coffee but, you know, in the general sense.”

Reece felt a twinge of something he had no energy or patience to name, only knew that he’d be returning to it later, over and over and over. “Thanks, Wax.”

And Wax  _finally_ went in for the kill. 

**FIN**


End file.
